Two debt-ridden Vidarbha farmers end lives on President's visit-Merinews.com

Two more debt-trapped cotton farmers of drought-hit Yavatmal district of Maharashtra's west Vidarbha region committed suicide on the eve of President Pranab Mukherji's first visit to the region today.

“Vidarbha region has reported 176 farmer suicides in the first three months of this year. Poverty and malnutrition are being ignored by the state and central governments,” Kishore Tiwari, president of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, a farmers’ advocacy group said.

Ramkrishnna Pandurang Kathale from village Sarangpur in Ner taluka of Yavatmal district consumed pesticides. He was rushed to Govt. Medical College, Yavatmal but died after three hours in the hospital.

Kathale had five acres of dry land and was cultivating Bt. cotton with his wife, two kids and aged father but suffered crop failure for three consecutive years. He had taken crop loan from DCCB Yavatmal, which wasRs.40 thousand in 2009, and had now reached one lakh and twenty thousand rupees.

25-year-old Prashant Rajubhau Sidhewar, a progressive cotton farmer from village Chalbardi in Kelapur taluka of Yavatmal district also consumed pesticides in his own field but died on the spot without getting any medical help.

His dead body is lying in a rural hospital. His father, Rajubhau said debts had reachedRs.8 lakhs as he had taken an agricultural loan from SBI, Pantanbori besides existing crop loan from DCCB Yavatmal.

“ModernTechnologycoupled with market forces controlling the cost has been major cause of agrarian crisis of the region, not to mention the apathy of the administration," Tiwari added.

He said while rising costs of cultivation and falling returns were the core reasons pushing farmers to suicide, there were other factors too. There is also an ecological crisis as farming practices have tended towards maximising output of a narrow range, leading to monoculture of crops.

“All policy support, be it from the government or from institutes, are skewed towards large farmers, large farms, few cash crops and high external input-based production systems," he said.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), one farmer kills himself every 37 minutes in India. About 14,000 farmers have committed suicide inMaharashtrain 2011 alone. A NCRB report stated that in the 17 years from 1995 to 2011, 270,940 farmers committed suicide in the country. Of these, nearly 20 percent were only from Maharashtra, where 53,818 suicides were reported.

Political experts and agriculturists point out that the11 districts of Vidarbha, though rich in minerals, coal, forests and mountains, continue to remain underdeveloped because of the dominance by political leadership from the other parts of the state, especially western Maharashtra.

According to another report by NCRB, in 2006, Maharashtra, with 4,453 farmer suicides, accounted for over a quarter of the all-India total farm suicides of 17,060. Yet another report from the Bureau said that while the number of farm suicides rose since 2001, the number of farmers has fallen, as thousands, in distress, turn their back to agriculture.

Till around 1970, Vidarbha farmers cultivated cotton, using seeds from their own plants. With the start of hybrid seeds, the yields increased significantly but so did the need for costly fertiliser and insecticide. Agriculturists have also blamed the restrictions and royalties placed on Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) seeds by Monsanto for the spurt in suicides.

In 2002, genetically modified BT cotton seeds arrived. Like the hybrid variety, they are non-renewable terminator seeds, and must be re-purchased every year. Today, they dominate the market. It has been pointed out by several agriculturists that these new methods caused farmers to suffer losses leading to debt, and pushed them to suicide.

In August 2012, technical experts appointed by the Supreme Court recommended a 10-year moratorium on all field trials of GM food, as well as the termination of all current trials of transgenic crops.

"Also, the government has never kept their word on the minimum support price of cotton. Last year, cotton farmers had to take to the streets after Cotton Corp ofIndiafixed the minimum support price for cotton atRs.3,300, far below the market rate ofRs.4,800 per quintal," Tiwari said.

Farmers had then demanded that the minimum support price of cotton be raised fromRs.3,300 toRs.6,000 per quintal to cover increases in production costs. "It is tragic to note that Maharashtra produces 50 percent of the country's cotton, but its cotton-producing regions are infamous for farmer suicide," Tiwari said.